Excited Again

Posted on October 2, 2026 by hafong

Photo by Nguyu1ec5n Quu1ed1c Thu00e1i on Pexels.com

October 2 and the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am surprised to find that I am excited again about writing and living. It’s been a difficult 2 years of living in the dark. Now the darkness has lifted. Someone turned on the light. Was it Him? Or was it Wayne Dyer, alias Lao-tzu? Regardless of who is responsible I am grateful and surprised by joy.

These days are golden and wondrous. Once again I am curious and eager. There’s still so much to discover and learn. I am happy to leave sadness and hopelessness behind. The world is still full of goodness though I am aware of its sickness. It’s the ying and yang of everything. You can’t have one without the other. It’s like the piano keys and the lyrics of Paul McCartney’s Ebony and Ivory.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don’t we?

We all know that people are the same whereever you go
There is good and bad in ev’ryone
We learn to live, when we learn to give
Each other what we need to survive, together alive

It’s good to feel alive and excited again. It’s good to feel the sun on my face on my morning walks. Now there’s the crunch of leaves underfoot. I love hearing the ring of my laugh in the air. I don’t even mind the sound of traffic rushing by. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and another day of writing and discovery.

September Days

Posted on September 16, 2026 by hafong

A rainy Monday morning. It’s as if the universe is weeping for the passing of sunny summer days. It was only yesterday morning that my sister and I were basking in the sunshine at Boffins Garden. I am feeling mellow with the rain, a tad melancholic, mourning for days/years lost.

It is Monday morning. As you can see, I was dumbstruck and lost for words again. I laid sleepless last night, unable to turn off thoughts in my head. These nights are recurring more than I like. I try to look on the positive side of them. They are teaching me to still myself and let the thoughts come as they may. It was hard to resist my usual habit of trying to understand and fix it. For some things, there are no fixes. And so I laid as still as I could and let the thoughts be.

I’m none the worse for wear. I might not be the sharpest tack in the box today but I think I can still have a good day. This is called making the best of things. I used to be an all or nothing girl. It’s taken me a long time to get here, to not throwing in the towel. I’ve had/am having a stretch of difficult September days. All of life feels difficult. I’m trying to adjust and change my view/attitude towards the word ‘difficult’. The big question is how am I going to do it.

What came immediately to mind was Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life. Like so many books I have, I haven’t read it. It’s a good place to start. I could make it my 100dayproject. Besides reading it, I could do a little art along with it. Sounds like a plan for the last 14 days of September.

Dumbstruck

Posted on September 7, 2026 by hafong

Photo by Rubens F Barros Neto on Pexels.com

I fell off my writing wagon – again. It happens. It’s not a bad thing. I ran out of words. I ran out of energy. Now I am dumbstruck. It wouldn’t hurt to be silent for awhile. I tend to talk ta little too much. It’s how I work out problems. That’s why I have this writing space. It’s to talk my fool head off without causing harm. All the thoughts, feelings swirling round and round inside can drive me mad. I rather not be mad or angry.

The world feels alot mad nowadays. Maybe it is just me. Whatever it is, I would like a little more normalcy and sanity. Is that too much to ask? What is normalcy anyways? There doesn’t seem to be much stability in this new world I find myself in. It has been raining all day with no sign of stopping. More is in the forecast for tomorrow. It is drought or flood. There’s not much I can do about the weather. There’s not much I can do about anything outside of myself. I might as well stop wasting my energy thinking about all that. I need it all to fix my immediate and personal world.

I hate to admit it, but I am still drowning in paper clutter. They still sit on my dining room table and in boxes here and there. I still have all the bags and bags of my mother’s clothes I’ve been meaning to sort and donate. I have so many meanings to but I haven’t moved on them. Some things are hard to sort and clear. They are cemented to me. Rainy days are not good days to work on these. But I have defrosted and cleaned one freezer. It was hard but it’s one battle I won.

It is not easy writing again. Something snapped in me and I broke. Sometimes it is ok to be broken and let the pieces stay where they are for awhile. They need the rest and will come together again when they are ready.

Falling Off Cliffs

Posted on August 15, 2026 by hafong

It rained last night. The earth is quenched and sated. I am relaxed – for awhile. One never knows what lies ahead. The other day I was a heartbeat away from being in an accident. I was on the way to my father’s house to meet with the palliative care nurse. Everything happened so fast it is hard to described. A car came flying and crashing to a stop in the intersection in front of me. There was a lot of noise, dust and falling parts. Most of it from the car. I saw parts of the passenger side and the front end falling apart in front of my eyes. It was like watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon of the road runner chasing Wile E. Coyote to a cliff.

These days I quite feel like that coyote who’s always the one that falls over the cliff in a cloud of dust. Though I do manage to pick myself up and dust myself off, I don’t quite have the resilience of a phoenix rising from the ashes. I am getting tired of the routine. I want a change up. I need a new repertoire. How to start? How do I get a new program? This is where Google and AI are helpful. Here’s what I found:

To reprogram your mind, use a three-part process: build daily awareness of old habits, use repetition like visualization or affirmations to create new neural pathways, and take aligned action to lock in the change.

I am good at recognizing my need for change. I’m also good at finding resources on how to do it. What I am not great at is following through. I’m an expert at going down the same old streets and falling off cliffs. I have changed all that now, speaking in the affirmative. I am going down different streets that don’t lead to cliffs. I am not creating a cloud of dust and a mountain of ashes. I am risen.

Art for the Heart

Posted on August 12, 2026 by hafong

August 12th, another day waiting to begin. I am stuck again on how to start. So I am sitting, sipping and trying to tap. I am not expecting a flow of words, ideas or wisdom. It is not the right mindset for success or a beginning. Bruce Lipton would say it is a wrong program. Caroline Myss would say, put your head in the toilet. I don’t want to hear you say that again!

I have learned a few things from reading all those self-help books after all! I don’t want to put my head in the toilet so let me write a new program. Let me tell a new story. It won’t be easy. Old stories are hard to let go/get out of. It requires new thoughts, new eyes and a different voice. I will try to get off my gerbil wheel. It goes nowhere but round and round. And who wants that, eh?

Sunday we got into the truck and made a road trip to see the 2026 Thickwood Hills Studio Trail art tour. Thickwood Hills area is nature’s giant masterpiece of rolling hills, wetlands, small lakes, grassy meadows, and poplar/aspen forests. The art tour consist of 19 stops. We could fit in only 6 stops: #3, #7, #15, #16 and #17. The last stop being the Larks Restaurant in Shell Lake before heading home to Saskatoon.

The art tour was started by Rigmore Clarke 25 years ago. She is the owner of the Forest Raven Studio. She is 90+ old, painting since she was 10 years old in Sweden and is still painting today. Her life and passion is an inspiration to me.

Cloudy Sunday Mutterings

Posted on April 19, 2026 by hafong

It’s disheartening to wake up to another grey morning. I try to not let the world weigh me down. But it is difficult watching what is unfolding in the U.S. I think the whole world is weighed down watching and so far unable to stop it. It is not in our country but it is affecting us universally. And it could happen in this country and others if we let it. Evil and corruption have no boundaries. I am surprised and shocked at the magnitude of it. I have been very niave. What a waker upper.

The count down has started. 11 days left in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I wonder where my fellow bloggers are. We are dwindling in numbers. This April round has been the lowest. I’ve missed a day here and there. Some days I don’t feel like showing up at all but I do, somehow. I don’t have a business or a page to promote. I haven’t kept up with my hobbies either. I can’t crow about #the100dayproject. I haven’t been sewing my quilt squares like I said I would. The Index-Card-a Day Challenge is coming up in June. I think I will sit this one out, too. It’s time to do different but I might change my mind. I don’t want to quit everything and disappear.

Spring is slow this year. It came and went. More snow came. I hope it’s over now. The good news is that the maple sap is running and boiling is underway in many regions. I have good news in the greenhouse also. Everybody survived the couple of nights of chilly temperatures. The lettuce, spinach and Chinese greens are popping up and doing well. This gives me some cheer and hope for another day.

Fascination

Posted on April 4, 2026 by hafong

It is a sunny April 4th. I’m always fascinated how the morning and sun changes everything. the world is not quite so dark and I don’t feel quite as bad. I think my cold broke during the night and I am heading towards feeling better and better. Though the world is not better but even worse today, it is fascination that I feel. In Caroline Myss words, we are living in the age of the unthinkable and unimaginable.

Aren’t you just fascinated watching how Donald Trump, the President of the United States and Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War are behaving and talking? Aren’t you just fascinated that they are running a war? It isn’t a Hollywood movie though it feels much like one. Most of all, I am fascinated that I am so focused on all this whereas before I had no interest in politics. I am really just an artsy fartsy person at heart. Perhaps I am waking up to the world around me. It is time for me to pay some attention and do whatever I can to help.

It is Easter weekend here in the Americas. We’re thinking about turkeys and hams. Then I think about the ‘they’ in the Middle East. I’m thinking of the civilians. Their country is being bombed. In my mind’s eye, I see the rubble falling on the children’s heads. It must be so terrifying. And here I sit, safe and comfortable, in my sunroom. I am not feeling the pain or trauma of life torn apart.

Perhaps I am too serious. Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying all this. But this is who I am. It is hard for me to be silent on things that matter to me. I am often surprised I still keep talking my heart when I get misunderstood and do not get much support. As I’ve often said myself, I am like a dog with a bone. I used to think that as a negative trait. I beat myself up on it. My vision has changed and I quite like that part of me now. Isn’t life fascinating – how it and we can change?

Handing it out every day

Posted on February 14, 2026 by hafong

February 14th, a sunny Valentine’s Day. Will you be mine? For some reason I am remembering years back, in grade school. We used to cut out valentines and give them out to each other. It seemed like such a lovely and innocent idea, handing out love. I wonder if it is still done in schools. I wonder why we can’t do that every day, hand out love. There are so many ways. They don’t have to be elaborate and it doesn’t have to be restricted to February 14. We could do it any day or even every day. Wouldn’t that be something? What would the world be like? What would I be like?

Why don’t I try it and see what happens? I am tired of being the tired old me. It isn’t easy as pie to change. One tiny change changes everything and it isn’t always a comfortable fit. I quickly slip back into my well worn comfortable boots. I sigh with relief and ask myself, why try to fight it? Days pass. The comfortable boots no longer bring relief and I scold myself. I need to break in new boots. I need patience. I need to keep trying. The fight continues.

I need to think different thoughts. I need to speak different words. I need to see different visions. I want different outcomes. I want to have different feelings. I will hand out a valentine a day.

On Sadness

Posted on February 13, 2026 by hafong

I’m feeling incredibly sad in the moment. I am going to sink into it and use it for a rest. I am not going to berate myself for not being a better person and rise above it. True, it is a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the temperature is way above normal for February. I can appreciate all that. At the same time, I know what it tells us about climate change and global warming. It depresses me to no end that some people still think that it is a hoax while I feel our world is ending.

I know, I know, I am way too glum and serious. I acknowledge that but some people are way too glib. I am also a bit under the weather because of all the melting snow. Whether it is too early or not for snow molds, I’ve been experiencing watery eyes, runny nose and fits of dry harsh coughing. I’ve been worried about getting sick like the previous year. I’ve been crossing my fingers and toes. So far, so good. I’m over the worse of it and recovering. Sad as I am, I can still appreciate life and this morning’s beautiful sunrise.

Did I tell you that change is hard? If I hadn’t, I am telling you now. It is very hard and uncomfortable. But it is a whole lot better for me to consciously change than to leave the change to everything and everyone around me. I want to be the director and the captain of my ship. I take responsibility and can’t blame anyone except myself.

I have never found it much help talking to another about feelings. Most people, instead of just listening and accepting, tend to want to explain and fix. It doesn’t work for me because it makes me feel unheard, that there’s something wrong with my feelings. Therefore it makes me feel worse. However, now that I’ve wrestled with and discovered how it makes me feel, I’m feeling better. I am not as sad. There’s light at the end of the keyboard.

The Next Thing to Do

Posted on January 28, 2026 by hafong

A cloudy misty January 28th. Only -18℃. Almost tropical weather for us northern snowbirds. My head feels a bit like pillow stuffings. I had one of those sleepless nights, not terribly restless but not restful either. I probably slept too much the other night. Didn’t go to the gym yesterday either. Then there’s all that thinking and ruminating. I was never any good at solving human problems. I was never any good at communications. I was never good at being open and clear. I hate hurting people’s feelings. I end up hurting my own. I think I am what you would call a self-suffering fool.

You know what they say about fools. They keep doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome. I’m guilty of that. I’ve been trying to unbecome myself for a long time with no luck. I’ve read Joe Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself a couple of times. I’m still the same self-suffering fool. Knowledge without real work does not create long lasting change. So I continue to experience these episodes of suffering and sleepless nights. I guess it’s not a bad thing. It wakes me up. I need to change my ways. I need to stop doing the same old, same old. I have to shake things up a little. Discomfort for everyone can be illuminating.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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